This invention relates to default list naming for mobile electronic devices, and more particularly to ensuring that a default contact list display name presented on a mobile electronic device is meaningful to a user of the mobile electronic device.
Many modern mobile electronic devices, such as cell phones, personal data assistants and pocket PCs, support numerous forms of communication. One such form of communication is instant messaging (IM), which allows a user of a mobile electronic device to send and receive text messages in near real-time over the Internet. To facilitate sending of text messages, a list of the user's contacts is typically stored on an IM server that is remote from the mobile electronic device. Prior to first login by the user, the IM server creates a default contact list for the user having a display name selected by the IM server or otherwise by the IM service. The server-selected default display name may vary depending on the IM service and is generally not meaningful to the user. For example, the display name is not guaranteed to be in the user's preferred language and may consist of an unintelligible string of characters. Thus, when a user logs into his or her IM account for the first time, a default contact list having a display name that is not meaningful to the user is often rendered on the mobile electronic device.